Inside 60

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

DE gives a nod and stuffs her sword into its sheath before hooking her head under the unconscious scholar and tossing him onto her back. ...somehow. Equestrian magic is still weird. Probably best to just smile and roll with it.

"Alright, I'll get him up to the roof," she says as she trots out of the room only to freeze for but a moment before tossing the guy back into the room and drawing her sword again. "We've got trouble."

What kind of trouble, you ask?

"Insignificant creature," comes a horrible, crackling voice. A voice that howls like a blast furnace. A voice Morgan has heard once already. "I grow weary of the meddling of your kind. Vanish from my sight."

And then searing wall of vile magic comes racing down the hallway, causing several of the books near the door to spontaneously burst into flames. Thick smoke begins curling through the doorway as cries of alarm fill the air. Now the building is well and truly on fire. And where Double Blade had been standing? All that's left is the molten remains of her sword and armor bubbling and burning a hole through the floor.

Air Brush acts fast, racing to the window and kicking it out. "Go! Get out of here!" she yells, gesturing frantically for Gilded Shadow to bail out the window and into the open night air as she moves to scoop up the unconscious scholar.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan's eyes go wide. Her mind is numb; she can't even scream for her poor first and only spawn.
That is still a really weird sentence. If someone didn't just die she'd be able to appreciate how weird that sentence was.
Instincts take over. Pure thoughts, pure feelings, reach out.
No one's here, nothing to see, pass on by, nobody home...
Without knowing or seeing it, Morgan pulls tight on the shadows of the room, shrouding them over the dreaded doorway. A veil, which from the other side seems to show only a boring, empty room with a few destroyed books and a distinct lack of fuzzy panicking quadrupeds.
But she's not really aware of that. She's much too busy leaping out the window and trying to flap her way back to the ground and the gathered folks. Luckily when she's in shock her instincts take over, and her instincts are a lot better at flying than she is.

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex ==> Slums]

Bail out the window!

Air Brush is close behind, hauling the slightly burned (and concussed) scholar. Honestly seeing the shadeling fliers carrying a human looks pretty silly due to the size difference. Regardless, both of them make it to the ground right about at the time the seventh floor completely erupts in flames, starting with the room they had just vacated. The firelight causes massive, flickering shadows to dance across the slums while at the same time causing panic on the rooftop. The shadelings just aren't moving people fast enough!

Not too terribly dissimilar from Gilded Shadow's recent experience, Blackout has a moment of instinctual action and ends up shadow-jumping everyone on the roof down to the shadow of the church bus cast by the flames licking up the sides of the complex. Well! That's a pretty handy skill to have.

The fire fighters who had thankfully already gathered begin moving to try to douse the flames, only to get blasted from on high by a bolt of vilefire from the massive forge wight now leaning out of the gaping hole in the seventh story.

Thankfully Nexus fire fighters are equipped with the best in fire resistant gear. Aside from being blasted for a tumble they should be fine.

Not so thankfully, the forge wight leaps down from its perch, dropping to the ground like falling star and blowing a molten crater into the street upon impact. The monster begins stomping toward the crowd, blobs of molten steel dripping from its form with each step as the heat radiating from its body becomes positively unbearable.

"The Crucible," the creature hisses with its voice like a blast furnace. "One of you little vermin took it. Give it too me and your deaths will be swift."

He really isn't very good at diplomacy, is he? And he seems to be assuming that the crowd of shadlings, emergency responders, and survivors are all helpless to oppose him.

[Lost_Deep]

A Spooky House

It takes a few minutes, but she decides to play a song from memory instead. She cracks her knuckles and begins to play. The piece is powerful and ominous but one she enjoys quite a bit.

The music fills the house; this is the kind of house that carries music well, especially a big, loud piano like this one. Nothing unusual happens, but if there's anyone else in the house they almost certainly know that she's here.

[Fenric]

[Caravan's Cellphone]

Inari sounds pleased

Great! If you could make your way to the courtyard of the Atorre Tower Complex in Skyside, I will meet you there along with the other guest - Atorre Tavlii.

[Lost_Deep]

Caravan's Cellphone

"I'll be there!" and unless Inari has more to say, Caravan will hang up and set off!

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

He is most certainly terrible at diplomacy, but Morgan is a bit too busy having a panic attack to notice. It just blew someone up! In a second! She's currently "safe" behind one of the vans, hiding as best she can, but what is she supposed to do? They can't fight that sort of thing, but she can't abandon everyone, no matter how bad it would be if that thing got whatever it wants so badly.

[Rebonack]

[Apartment Complex]

"No one will step forward?" the forge wight bellows, holding aloft that scary looking hammer that it had totally been carrying around the whole time. The weapon's head begins to burn with hellish red flames. "Very well. Then you shall all burn together."

The infernal undead smites the haft of his weapon against the asphalt, causing a shell of impossibly hot molten metal to explode from him and begins ripping through the ground, racing toward survivors, responds, and shadelings alike whilst boiling the very air.

Then it shatters, fracturing like glass and splattering the ground harmlessly with spots of molten metal.

Hovering in mid-air, a single hoof outstretched and still smouldering with hellish heat, is an absolutely massive pegasus. A nightmære, tall, regal, and imperious. She drops to the ground, interposing herself between the forge wight and the survivors while cries of, 'The Mistress is here!' ripples through the crowd of shadelings.

"You would stand against me and face your destruction, nightmære?" the forge wight scoffs. "The nightwalker knew better, and she was stronger than you. What hope do you have to overcome me when she failed?"

Sunder narrows her eyes at the monster. "She fought alone, for herself. I fight for my friends while they stand beside me."

A pony steps up to stand abreast with the nightmære. Then another. Then a police officer who draws his sidearm and aims at the monster. Then an apprentice sorcerer saved from the apartment. Then an elderly man with no weapon aside from his cane held aloft. And then more, and more, and more. The fliers hover above her. A crash sounds from the apartment behind as more shadelings leap from the lower stories to the pavement below, dozens of spawn redeemed from the ranks of the wights. Even more pour from the front door until the undead abomination is completely surrounded. Horns light, wings spread, and hooves paw against the asphalt.

The monster scoffs at the gathering, opening his mouth to deride them only to get blindsided by the fire fighters wielding their fire hose. The molten metal of the wight's body hisses and cracks, becoming brittle from the sudden drop in temperature.

Air Brush nudges Morgan with her nose. "Let's go stand with everyone else. I think the Mistress is doing something."

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan finds herself heartened a bit by Air's presence, and comes out from behind the van to join the crowd. The very angry and armed crowd.
"Heh. I think as the expression goes, 'you underestimate our power.' " she mumbles to herself.

[Rebonack]

[Slums]

The forge wight hurls a much diminished fireball toward the nearby fire hydrate, blasting it apart and sending a torrent of water spraying into the night sky. "Fools!" the monster seethes. "You think you can overcome me with mere platitudes?" It raises it cruel hammer and slips into an offensive stance as the flames within it begin burning with loathsome heat once again.

Sunder shakes her head.

And then?

Then she reaches out with her dawn aura to touch the aura of every pony in contact with her own, and through them every aura they touch. In an instant, every shadeling in the circle is connected, every one of them feeling the hopes and determination and the friendship of the others. Feeling the magic of the others. It hums and pulses and crackles, begging to be released. It empowers not only the little ponies, but every single person who stands together with them.

"No. Not with platitudes. With the magic of friendship." The nightmære claps her wings, sending a sundering pulse of magic tinted with the colors of twilight smashing into the forge wight. Then its gets blasted by a magic missile from the sorcerer, glowing with the same power. Then a telekinetic blast from a unicorn. Then a crystalline shard hurled by a qilin. Then a bolt of shadow from a thestral. Then a pulse of pure dawn aura from one of the arions. Even Air Brush gets in on the action, raking her wings through the water at her hooves, fashioning a swirling prismatic ball and hurling it at the forge wight. The attack splashes against it, quenching its flames and bathing it in light as of a rainbow at sunset. Attack after attack after attack, each chewing into the forge wight's defenses, each leaving it disrupted and dazed.

The wight flails its limbs. It tries to retreat, but it finds no respite. The monster is beset upon from all sides.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan sighs. It's an oddly pleasant sigh for the circumstances, simply letting the atmosphere overwhelm her. Sometimes people can just be so good. It's nice to be part of that for once. Morgan reaches out and unties her bag, letting it drop to the ground. She reaches into it for a moment, drawing her gun in her impossibly dexterous extremities. She waits, waits until the thing has been pounded and fired upon and smote and most importantly, until it has had its flaming skin cooled by blasts of cold and water and cold water. And at that point she takes a few steps forward, and raises her free hoof into the air, calling forth a long stream of inky black darkness. With a single flick of her non-existent wrist, she sends it streaming towards the forge-wight, wrapping around its arms and pulling them tight together. And more importantly, provides her a tether so she can yank it back, propelling her at incredible speed at the monstrosity, landing hard with her back legs on its shoulders, using the shadow-whip to keep her balance.
"High-and-mighty Folks like you might prefer to be all alone, but I think you'll find that it's a double-edged sword. In the end, you're not such hot stuff after all." she says simply, before placing the barrel of her revolver squarely in the thing's eye.
Whereupon she fires.
Once. Twice. Thrice. Six times.

And only then, if it's still standing, does she do a neat little back-flip off of the creature, and blast it full in the face with her twilight aura-blast.

[Rebonack]

[The Slums]

Six shots rings out.

Everypony knew what was coming next. They just knew. And so, in harmony, they all opened themselves to Gilded Shadow.

When she tosses the aura bomb at that twisted, unholy mockery of life, it isn't simply the power of a single pony that she wields.

Nor is it the power of dozens.

No, when Gilded Shadow raises her hooves above her head and focuses the harmony within her, she draws upon the ties of friendship from hundreds of others. The golden orange orb swirls with sunset pink and the deep purples of the starry heavens, silvery specks of cool light swarming like fireflies around a central core of incandescent glory.

Shadow's attack strikes true.

And for a moment?

For a moment the whole of the slums is filled with the gentle light of dawn.

The forge wight obligingly explodes shortly after Morgan lands back on the ground.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

No, it obligingly explodes shortly after she lands on the ground, tosses her head as she turns away from it, and flicks the gun, causing the cylinder to slide out and the spent cartridges clink to the ground. Because that is how you do a proper victory pose.

And then promptly walks back over to her bag and goes about replacing the gun and tying it around her back again, like nothing at all happened.

[Rebonack]

[The Slums]

There's dead silence until Gilded Shadow reaches her bag.

Then?

Then the cheering starts. Cheering, clapping, whistling, and a whole bunch of equestrians stomping their hooves in celebration. Air Brush gallops over to her friend and wraps her in a hug. Feathery wing hugs are pretty much one of the best things ever.

As for Sunder? She breathes in the black mist remaining of the forge wight and begins the rather trying process of making a new friend. It's actually... comforting. Comforting, yes, to know that their Mistress suffers the same hardships and triumphs that they do. At at the end of much unpleasant sounding retching a new nightmære spawn arises. As with all the more powerful children of Sunder he has his own unique defining traits aside from just his mark (an anvil with a red heart on it, as it happens). His mane, fetlocks, and tail appear to be deep crimson flame mingled with darkness,red flames within him standing in stark contrast to black ribs.

The new arion blinks, giving his head a shake. For a moment he meets Sunder's gaze, but then his eyes fall to the ground, his ears drooping. "I've been steeped in evil and hate for so long..." the pony mutters. "Friends... how long has it been since I had friends? How long since-!"

He stiffens when Sunder touches him, nuzzling at his ear. "Since you were loved? Your are loved by your friends, as it should be. What is your name, my little pony?"

"I'm Ardent Heart, Mistress. Former lieutenant of the demon prince Orcus," Ardent replies as he rises to his hooves, offering a tentative smile.

Sunder nods and spreads her wings wide. "My little ponies! Come greet your new friend, Ardent Heart! But do not linger long, more of our friends are still within the apartment trapped in the chains of undeath. Free them! More of our living friends are huddled in fear. Find them! Comfort them! Lead them to safety! We have drunk from the cups of sorrow and triumph alike tonight, my little ponies, but the time for celebration hasn't come yet. Go and help your friends."

There comes a chorus of 'Yes Mistress!' from the mob of ponies gathered before they go galloping back inside. Pegasi begin darting up into the skies to fetch clouds and begin stomping out rain to quench the flames on the upper floors.

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan returns the hug. But she doesn't feel comfortable jumping back in to rescue more folks. No, she feels tired. So tired. She goes over and sits down against one of the parked vehicles. She needs a rest after all of that.
"Whew..."

[Murkus]

[Street Barge Stratus - Ballroom]

They cross the peach colored marblike floor - marble-alike, in cheap demihuman slang - without any opposition. The occupants of the chamber, perhaps thirty or so including the crewmen, appear unharmed albeit perturbed. Strange, brown bloated creatures dressed with fine crimson tunics huddle together in whale-like pods. They share no concept of personal space among their species, closeness is in their nature, whether it be to comfort one another or out've shared fear. The susurrus of their worried, bleating voices is insufferable when standing too close. The thestrals pass a few others - strange, calmly speaking tall folken with great dangling trunks, an enormous arachnid in a rather nice suit and tie, other oddities of the clashing noble culture.

The thestrals will begin to reveal themselves beside a stout mustachioed man in a suit afire with the brightest colors of Fall. His cap has the most shiny things upon it - and his very nearly human face puts forth some semblance of command. He has little in the way of a neck - a squat head and a too-broad mouth altogether give him away as some offshoot. Thus, he and the two men near him don't quite fall over each other with fear or surprise. Their bewilderment is clear, but it lasts only a short while. Vigilantes. Ah. "Gunfire below, ma'rm," Mustache huffs for the three of them, gathering himself. He folds his hands slowly behind is back, from which they'd lurched forward into a fighting stance when Tenebra and Nyx appeared. "I fear the worst. I've taken all possible measures to alert the police, but I cannot contact the bridge for a more formal alarm. The bells are still sounding, but who can say how long that will last, ma'rm. I've been preparing a few men to go down with me and find out the trouble."

The trouble, it would seem, is making no attempts to conceal itself. Not too far away from the thestrals now, the locked double-doors to below begin to click and clack. The handles flicker madly, as though willing to be shot loose. A pair of Autumn-dressed door guards take a few smart steps back.

It is what saves them a great deal of pain. In a shockwave of blue light, both doors are blown off their hinges, catapulted into the room. Guests are sent scrambling to avoid their path, all but for the tall folk, one of which is struck from his near suicidal state of calm by a flying length of gold and oak. Battered to the floor, but only injured, it would seem.

Through the door soars a collection of airborne blue globes. Several of them are small, dim, lacking light or life of their core-sphere. The core-sphere, a young Turrr named Qy, crackles with power and life, a glowing ball of lightning covered in runic designs. He is laced around his girth with protruding block constructs, the breadth of which denote his age, revealing him to the knowledgeable as barely a teenager. Qy shrieks with glee, his dull Ur spheres whirling around him in unison, ready to channel more of his explosive inner light. Most of the guests take the swiftest path away from him.

Turrr have no voice with which to speak the Common language. Thus, when Qy speaks, it is in the combined voices of his friends, a layered amalgamation that booms throughout the chamber, rolling slowly like the sound of thunder. "Everybody on the floooooOORRRR!" The last becomes a shriek, a command, sending lightning scything out through the Ur-sphere channels and blasting craters in the pillars set gapped around the room. "Tell me where the one called Jin is, and you will not be harmeeed. Ed. Urr." Qy whoops and stutters strangely.

Mustache, recovered again from yet another interesting entrance, hollers back, "Jin's long since gone home for the day, fiend! Leave this place at once!"

Qy turns his terrible attentions upon the Mustache and his current company, the thestrals among them.

"Lying will do you no good, Urr-cutal-nfam, hurk, no good at all," The enunciation of the last word bears terrible weight, as one of the Ur spheres alights, tossing a lightning bolt in the crewman's direction.

[Sky Barge Stratus - Roof Deck]

Jin scrabbles out from between the two of them, his wits long since scared off, unable to cope with what's happening. As Noelle begins to leave, he hurries over and squats to push as much of the lantern-goop back inside his charge as he can. With a quick, fearful glance at the shadowy equine still standing there. "What should I do?" He manages to ask.

[Rebonack]

[Slums]

Air Brush takes a step back and nods. "I think you were just the focus for all our magic, Shadow. I would probably be tired too."

...then she gives her friend another hug for good measure. "I'll be back. Don't blow up anymore demon prince lieutenants while I'm gone," she says with a grin before flying off.

And now?

Morgan gets some time to just slump there next to the van, though it isn't too long before another pony joins her. A very very big pony; twice her height, easily. Up this close, Sunder is somewhere between awe inspiring and imposing. Though... she doesn't speak. She just sits there in silence, watching all her little ponies working with the living to save as many people as they possibly can.

And those they can't save?

Well... Sunder always has room for more little ponies in her herd.

Imposing. Regal. Imperious. Awe inspiring. All of those things, certainly. But also kind. Gentle. Loving. And... tired. Sunder is obviously trying to hide it, but she's just as tired as Gilded Shadow is. After all, she had been the one linking everypony together to begin with. But it's more than that. Her exhaustion is mental as well as physical.

She gives a long, drown out, weary sigh and at last speaks. "Tonight five hundred and fourteen little ponies were redeemed. And fifty two perished. There are still... hundreds... hundreds of wights left in the apartment. Hundreds of friends waiting to be freed. I began with one... I redeemed her because I wanted information. But then I realized it would be cruel to leave her friends chained in undeath. I was faced with a choice. Destroy them, or redeem them as my spawn. I didn't have the heart to kill Dark Dreams' friends in front of her, so I made them into my little ponies, too." Sunder closes her eyes and gently bows her head. Her ears and nostrils twitch, as though sensing something known but to her. "There are now one thousand three hundred and seventy five little ponies redeemed from the ranks of the undead who look to me as a leader."

She opens her eyes, fixing Morgan with a pleading look. "Am I doing the right thing? Should I have just given those shadows a swift death? Should I have turned anyone? Am I really giving people a second chance? Are you really still... you? Whoever you were before?"

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan isn't really impressed by size. After all, suddenly normal people are almost twice her height. Her whole sense of perspective is out of whack!
She turns her head toward Sunder, listening quietly to her speech with a somewhat blank expression. She doesn't answer right away. She lets the question hang in silence for a bit before she turns her head back towards the building.
"My mom named me after her best friend- someone who puller her rear end out of the fire more times than she could count. She smiled whenever she said it; she just couldn't help herself. My dad couldn't handle it after she died, and he ended up bitter and hateful. He said I'd never make it on my own like she did, so I gave him the finger and wound up here. Air Brush refers to Florence as a separate person sometimes. Double Edge used 'I.' Red Velvet couldn't care less, and you can look right there at Ardent. I don't think we are who we used to be, necessarily. To some degree, we wind up who we want to be. I liked who I was, so I'm still the same person. Air Brush wants to surpass Florence. Ardent just wanted to be free from the hate. If we need to change, we do. If we don't, we don't. Maybe. I ain't an expert."
She pauses.
"I would have let him die. I would have laughed at the idea of letting him come back after he vaporized Double Edge. He's the reason all of those five hundred joined tonight, even if you put some blame on the demon itself, and now he's laughing with everyone else. You're a good person, Sunder. You had mercy where so few would have. And look at him now. Think of that smile when you think those thoughts, because that's someone who was given a chance he didn't think he'd ever deserve, from a place that had every reason not to give it. That's what a second chance looks like, Sunder. So you tell me, is it worth it? It's something I can't answer for you."

[Rebonack]

[Slums]

Sunder takes another deep breath, closes her eyes, and whispers half to herself, "A gift undeserved, given... Judgement, tempered with a promise of new life. By justice, the demon's minion perished for his evil. By grace, Ardent Heart was born anew..."

When she opens them again her eyes are burning with gentle light, light that slowly creeps across her, growing in vibrancy and color as does the sky with the approach of dawn. The color swims and swirls across her, gradually brightening until she glows with the pure gold of daybreak shining through early morning mist.

And then the light is gone.

Sunder has become almost imperceptibly larger. She gives a laugh, fluffing her wings. "Forgive me for the theatrics. I'm still growing and learning along with the rest of you, my friends. This is all as new to me as it is to you." No kidding. This crazy has been going on for a few weeks at most. Things move fast in the Nexus. "I think I'm being made a better pony by all of this... You certainly deserve a better pony than I was before I began retrieving my Virtues..."

[Sky Barge]

Without

"I can whisk you down to the surface lickity split," Blackout says, reaching out to put a comforting wing in the cricket-person's shoulder. And in doing so he does his best to buttress his aura of wuji, filling the area around him with the refreshing calm of harmony. "Shadow jumping might make you feel a little queezy if you aren't use to it, but it's totally safe. Where do you normally get off this boat when you're done working? If I can see it from here I can take us both there."

It's a rather useful talent to have, really. Usually thestrals can only shadow jump themselves. Blackout is far more flexible with the ability than most.

"But if you can't that's okay. Just point me in a direction and hop on my back. I can carry way more than it looks like I can."

Within

The two threstrals nod. "You lay down and screen for us," Tenebra orders her fellow. "Once Blackout gets here he can shadow jump the passengers to safety while I box the pirates in. So long as we have the element of surprise we can hopefully catch them with their guard down and end this mess without anyone getting hurt."

And then the doors explode, totally ruining the element of surprise.

Whoops!

Both armored equines whirl around to face the pirates as they come crawling/floating/stomping/walking up and begin tossing lightning bolts around. They don't even have the politeness to allow the exchange between Mustache and the floating orbs to finish before sprining into action. Nyx lets out a cackling laugh almost reminiscent of a hyena before loudly proclaiming in a distressingly creepy voice, "DARKNEESSSSS~ Ah ha ha ha ha!"

And so it is.

Nyx claps her bat-like wings and a thick cloud of roiling, black, utterly opaque fog comes rushing forth from her to fill the end of the chamber occupied by the ruined door. The cloud of gloom is black in the truest sense of the word, utterly devouring every trace of electro-magnetic radiation that touches it. Lightning bolts cast into the cloud will likely find themselves scattering uselessly as the current finds ten thousand equally viable paths to take through the magically charged air.

The obscuring cloud provides no interference with the two thestrals sonar 'vision', though.

Both dart into the darkness, the shadows clinging to their hooves muffling their movements as they pick out targets. Nyx will aim to pounce on the most obviously living of the pirates and sink her fangs into them. Should her bite strike true she'll drain away some of the creature's awareness and attempt to send it into a deep, dreamless slumber. Tenebra, meanwhile, will try to telekinetically thicken the gloom around Turrr into a solid shell to rob the creature of the chance to lob lightning at any more targets should Nyx' screen be dispelled.

[Deathkeeper]

Slums

Morgan gives her wings a shrug.
"This has been a night full of theatrics, one way or another. And if you're giving me a place to stay when all this is said and done, you can do whatever you want. 'Specially since everything I owned not in this bag is now ash."

[Rebonack]

[Slums]

"The fight against the flames appears to go well," Sunder observes. "Was your apartment on the seventh floor?"

That's the one that has taken the most damage, obviously. Floors six, seven, and eight all have some fire damage, but the rest are probably more or less intact. No idea how the Ardent managed to get so far without setting the whole building ablaze. That probably would have been easier. Just burn the building to ash and then sift through the remains for the Crucible.

"My demesne is open to you, of course. I hold the Midnight Park and the neighborhood around it within a two block radius. And my lands are ever growing within the Gloom," Sunder says. Then wrinkles her nose a bit. "It's likely only a matter of time before the various lords and ladies of the Gloom begin to take notice of me. And I doubt tonight's events will enamor Orcus to me in the least."

Nope.

Not even a little bit.

In fact, the demon prince is probably going to be putting up a bounty on Sunder and her little ponies tomorrow on the Wall!

Isn't that swell?

[Deathkeeper]

Slums

Morgan chuckles.
"Oh? I'm on the fifth. Just being pessimistic, I suppose. I think I've heard of Orcus. From what I know he's not exactly hard to make him hate someone. He usually does by default.
Oh, and I'm Morgan, by the way. Or Gilded Shadow if you really prefer it. Air won't pick which she calls me. I suppose in the end I don't mind either way."

[Rebonack]

[The Slums]

"His hatred of everything is well documented. But being a special object of his hate is unusual," Sunder points out with a sigh. "Still, we grow stronger day by day. The advantage the undead usually hold over the living instead belongs to us and many of their most terrifying tools do them little good. It would please me if we redeem every undead creature in the Nexus. No one deserves to exist in such a state of torment."

Morgan has basically blocked the memory of being a wight from her mind.

It's honestly understandable.

"I was Sweet Spring when I was alive. Afterwards I took on the name Sunder. As I've gathered more of my old soul, my old name has grown more... familiar to me," the nightmære recounts. "But in the end, I believe Sunder better fits my destiny. And, I think, Gilded Shadow better fits your own. But that's no reason to cut the ties to our old lives. I am still, in many ways, Sweet Spring. Just as you're still Morgan. Everyone changes. What we do with those changes is up to us."

She then reaches down to nuzzle Shadow's ear. "You were very brave tonight, my little pony. I'm proud to call you my friend."

[Deathkeeper]

Slums

The huge ear in question twitches a bit. She's oddly comfortable with her giant, wiggle-able ears, despite her slight discomfort getting use to everything else. Maybe it's because she hasn't actually really seen them?

"Well, I'm glad to say the same for you, Sunder. But I'm not that small, you know." she says, a little grumpily at the end.
Of course, how little she is might not be staying the same. She did just smite the heck out of a forge-wight, and a few normal ones.

[Rebonack]

[Slums]

Sunder laughs a gentle laugh of delight and nuzzles Shadow again. "Once you're bigger than me, I'll stop calling you my little pony, Gilded Shadow."

And on that note, things will wind down. Sunder will rise and lend her aid to both rescue and redeeming as best she can. The cramped apartment halls really aren't made for someone as large as she. The fires are extinguished and those still living are bused away to shelters. And another three hundred seventy six assorted members of Team Nightmære are added to their number.

Lucky Thirteen Apartments had been a huge building, after all. Two hundred rooms on each floor. And the first six floors had been ravaged by the undead. There were more wights besides. Some escaped from the shadelings, loping off into the darkness of the slums. Others had been destroyed by other defenders of the apartments, causing them to crumble into fine ash. Those were deaths Sunder and her kin could do little about.

And now?

Now a vast migration was gearing up to depart.

In that spirit, Air Brush at last lands again next to her friend, a pair of hastily made saddle bags clutched in her mouth while a second pair is tied around her haunches. She spits it out in front of, "There you go, Gilded Shadow! I found somepony with a talent for working fabric. He's been churning out stuff like this like crazy from old clothes. I was thinking we should go grab what's left of our old stuff. Everypony will be traveling to the Mistress' demesne together in an hour."

[Deathkeeper]

Slums

Morgan smiles at the appearance of Air Brush.
"Hey, thanks. I'll probably keep my bag for a while too. Nostalgic value and all that. You need any help with anything?" she offers, taking the bags from her.

[Recaiden]

[Midnight Park]

Here comes a person, only mildly on fire, dressed all in grey except for numerous colorful scarves, not all of which are wrapped around the neck and face for warmth. She's holding a hammer, but not threateningly, just because she always is.

And Ashna looks around curiously, wondering what all is in this unlisted location.

[Rebonack]

[Slums ==> Apartment Complex]

"There's a bunch of Florence's old stuff that I want to keep," Air Brush says with a nod. "Things that still feel like they're my things instead of just the things of some person I know a bunch about. You know, keepsakes and stuff."

She frowns slightly before shrugging her wings. The disconnect with her old memories still really bugs her. It's an understandable feeling, honestly.

"You've already got your hat," she continues as she trots back toward the building. "What else do you think you'll be grabbing?"

The inside of the building is quite the side. Shadelings are all over the place sifting through the remains of their old lives and deciding what's worth carrying with them to their new lives. You can tell a lot about a person when they boil down what's important to them to what fits in a pair of saddlebags.

As the two friends walk past, Morgan will receive a multitude of greetings and praise. "It's Gilded Shadow." "Hi Gilded Shadow!" "That was amazing how you blew up the boss-monster." "Nice hat, Shadow." "How did you do that crazy dragon ball attack?" and so on and so forth. Seems word has spread pretty quickly about who she is and what she accomplished, even if she had simply been as a conduit for the magic of harmony.

[Midnight Park]

This place enshrines a patch of forest so thick that light never reaches the ground. The smallest trees are wider than most people are tall, and the largest are truly awe-inspiring. The forest floor is a maze of twisting roots, fallen branches, and decaying leaves. There is never a breath of wind among the massive trunks, and the atmosphere is oppressive with fear and gloom.

Or...

At least it used to be oppressive with fear and gloom. Fear and gloom are still around, but they aren't nearly as bad.

Foot paths have been cleared through the forest and lanterns hung up that glow with cool silvery white light to keep the feral shadows at a distance from anyone who decides to walk in the cool of the shadows. Undead creatures that stray too close to the magical lanterns will find themselves illuminated by incandescent sunlight until they retreat back to a safe distance. Signs have been set up admonishing visitors to stay on the paths and warning of the unspeakable doom that will probably befall them if they don't.

Shadows prowl the darkness, their red eyes glinting in the gloom and the air filled with their hungry whispers, though they're loath to approach the paths. There's the occasional bodak or feral vampire spawn lurking around in the park as well, but they tend to keep well away from the paths since those areas are mostly commonly patrolled by the park's custodians.

The custodians, of course, being Team Nightmære. It isn't at all uncommon to find patrols of nightmære shadelings poking about, chatting with visitors, maintaining the trails, or installing new equipment around the park to make visits by the living more pleasant.

Shortly after arriving, Ashna will find a large qilin mare with a rake held in her mouth quietly raking at a sand garden set in the coiling roots of a massive tree. On closer inspection, that sand looks suspiciously like ground up bone.

[Recaiden]

[Midnight Park]

Ashna laughs and smiles, skipping along the path in. She's home!
About the happiest person you could imagine bounces up to the qilin.
"Hello! Nice garden you have there. What is this place? And if you don't mind my asking, what are you? And this tree? Look at it!"

[Deathkeeper]

Apartment Complex

Morgan smiles. "I really didn't have anything all that worthwhile, to be honest. I'll just grab some of the things that were a little more valuable but not practical enough to have brought when I was first trying to get out. Really, I don't know if I'll need both of these bags. " she says.

And then she starts to blush a bit and twitch her ears bashfully as she's showered in attention. She's never really had any fame. And they're all using her new name, which she's only told Air and Sunder. Air must have told them, she supposes. It's nothing bad. It is a fine name.